


Best Behavior

by Not_You



Series: one only understands the things that one tames [15]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dress Up, F/M, Kneeling, Leashes, M/M, Phil Coulson & Pepper Potts Friendship, Restaurants, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:23:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1252687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Clint has to wear real people clothes again, in order to help Phil liaise with Tony Stark.  Pepper comes too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Phil, I’m gonna fuck this up,” Clint whimpers, and Phil wishes he didn’t have to drive, so he could cuddle Clint when he’s feeling this way.

“You will not. You are my beautiful boy and you will be fine.”

“We’re almost there, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Phil admits, and Clint makes a little wheezing sound that would be funny if it didn’t signify such distress.

“Boss, if I _do_ fuck this up…”

“I would forgive you, yes. But you’re not going to fuck this up.” This is not an empty assurance. Phil doesn’t believe in setting people up for failure, and the reason this is happening now is because he’s sure that Clint will be fine. He doesn’t have time to say as much, because he’s busy looking for a place to park as they reach their destination. Clint swallows hard and straightens his back as they come to a stop, his face taking on a look of fierce, shuttered focus. Clint is always beautiful, but when Phil looks over and sees him looking so goddamned courageous in his evening best, he has to lean across the gearshift and kiss him. Clint doesn’t go in for much makeup, so they can melt into it a little without necessitating a touch-up. Clint smiles a little as Phil pulls away.

“Okay,” he says, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening his door, “let’s do this thing.”

Phil smiles back, and locks the car behind them, tucking the keys away before taking out Clint’s formal leash and clipping it to his collar. “You’re going to be fine.”

Clint sighs deeply. “If you say so, boss.”

“I do say so.” He kisses Clint’s cheek and gives him the faintest suggestion of a tug. “Come on.”

Phil hasn’t been to this kind of evening engagement in a long time, but it all comes back to him and makes him feel like a ridiculous teenager again, towing Roberta into a school dance. He consciously casts the memory aside, focusing on the present and on keeping Clint close and calm. After all, it’s just dinner. At a ludicrously exclusive place, but dinner all the same. Phil wouldn’t bring Clint if he didn’t think he was ready, but that doesn’t disallow the presence of selfish motives. Tony Stark is going to be there, and misery loves company. He feels uncharitable for thinking about it that way, because Stark has a good heart. It’s just buried underneath enough layers of bullshit to make Phil want to shake him like a maraca. Having Clint to pet will make the entire thing easier to bear.

“So, is Stark a dom or a sub?” Clint asks as they walk toward the gorgeous glass entryway with the living trees growing up through holes in the floor.

“He’s a heterodynamic. Calls himself a switch because he’s ‘reclaiming’ it.”

“And it’s shorter to say. Well, that’s cool, anyway.”

“He’s a pain in the ass, but yes, that isn’t why.”

Clint snickers, and then clams up as they join the well-dressed crowd lurking around the maître d’s stand. Phil can feel his sub tensing up a little, but only a little. Clint keeps his back straight and his eyes down, fiercely correct. Phil wants to kiss him, but settles for wrapping his hand in the leash, keeping Clint close as he goes up to ask about Stark. As is always the case when dealing with Stark, their table is ready. Their whole private room is ready, in fact, and Stark grins from ear to ear when he sees them, waving.

“Hey, Agent. Figured this’d go easier with some privacy.” He stops and stares at Clint. “Oh my god, you brought a sub! I feel like we’re bonding now!”

Coming closer, Phil can see Pepper where she’s kneeling beside Tony. She’s wearing the classic little black dress and pearls, and rolls her eyes, looking as lovely as ever. “Tony, don’t be ridiculous. Hi, Phil.”

“Hi, Pepper. This is Clint Barton, he helped out in New Mexico.”

Tony chuckles. “This is Pepper Potts, the person who actually runs things.”

Pepper bows, and Clint offers the standing version of the same gesture and then follows a gentle tug of the leash to kneel on his own cushion. He settles into position and stays there with the same deadly stillness he uses in sniper nests. Phil sits in the chair beside him, and strokes Clint’s hair with one hand before looping the leash around the hook on the underside of the table. Pepper is going without, as usual. Phil isn’t sure if she just doesn’t like leashes or if it has something to do with Stark’s random and extravagant hand gestures. He’ll have to ask her some time.

The Avengers Initiative is still basically a glint in Phil’s eye at this point, but Stark has already volunteered some of Iron Man’s services, and Phil is well aware that Stark likes him better than he wants to let on, and that it’s in his own best interests to remain the face of SHIELD where Stark is concerned. Besides, he does like Stark. He idly wonders if it’s possible to foster a switch, and then brings himself back to the conversation, wherein Clint is explaining the difference between aerial silks and corde lisse with a smooth assurance that makes Phil want to kiss him. Pepper is smiling in that encouraging way she has, and even Tony looks slightly entertained. The servers arrive with the first round of water, and ask Tony first:

“Tray and utensils for your sub, sir?”

“Oh, both, Pepper’s a tool-using primate.”

The waitress giggles, and turns to Phil. “Sir?”

They’ve practiced this at home, and Phil isn’t going to let Clint down. “He prefers to be addressed.”

“Very good, sir. Tray and utensils, mister?”

“Both, thank you,” Clint says, and smiles up at Phil as they leave. Phil strokes his hair and smiles back. Subs are allowed to set their dishes directly on the floor, but that’s for punishments and people who crave humiliation. Clint’s dignity is important to him, and he shares a sub-to-sub look with Pepper when the trays arrive, each one a neat little table in its own right, with an ornately folded napkin and the same gold-rimmed dishes as their escorts.


	2. Chapter 2

Dinner goes better than Phil was expecting it to, honestly. Clint relaxes into his place, fascinated by his tray. Phil has briefed him on all the various utensils they’ll be faced with here, and he brightens a bit when Stark has Pepper choose the wine on the grounds that she knows best. She’s graceful in her power, carefully tasting and sending one bottle back because it won’t go with Clint’s order.

“You don’t have to do that,” Clint says, and Pepper just smiles at him.

“Yes, I do. I have Views about wine.”

“Better listen to her, son,” Stark says, grinning. “I don’t get in Pepper’s way when it comes to wine.”

“Or anything else important,” Pepper teases, eyes sparkling.

Stark chuckles, stroking her smooth hair without mussing it. “Pretty much. I know what my girl can do.” The warm pride in his voice touches Phil’s heart, and he pets Clint as well without even realizing it. Clint leans his head on Phil’s knee and closes his eyes, blushing a little. “Looks like you’ve lucked out almost as much as I have, Agent. Your boy is adorable.”

“He is,” Phil says softly, lightly scratching Clint behind the ear because he likes that.

“It is good to see him with someone, Clint,” Pepper adds, “I was starting to worry.”

Clint opens his eyes and blushes deeper. “I’ve been around for a while. Fostering.”

“Oh, wow. I didn’t know anyone even still did that,” Tony says.

“It’s an odd arrangement,” Phil says, “but it’s worked for me.” He doesn’t mention of course that he also fostered the person who insinuated herself into Stark’s organization and then stabbed him in the neck. It may have been for his own good, but it doesn’t mean he’s over it quite yet.

Stark chuckles. “I know all about odd arrangements working out.” He strokes Pepper again, and she smiles faintly and leans into the touch. She really is the most effortlessly elegant sub Phil has ever seen. He’s glad that Clint doesn’t seem intimidated. He won’t admit it to anyone without some prying, but he really wants his sub and Pepper to get along. He has to assume most doms are like this, with at least one sub friend whose approval is Very Important. They talk about the Initiative and about the Captain America biopic from last year, which Phil thought was grossly inaccurate and Tony liked because it was trying to be dark and gritty and make Cap look like some kind of asshole. Still, it was better than the smarmy one from the fifties that went too far the other way, or the early-seventies one that desecrated its historical basis with camp.

Phil does his best not to pontificate on this subject, but Clint still has to tug on his trouser leg and tell him, “Sir, you’re nerding out again.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Phil says, dry as dust, and Clint just snickers at him.

“No respect at all,” Tony sighs, sounding delighted, and then perks up further as the food starts to arrive. It’s French and there are multiple courses, but Clint holds it together, copying Pepper’s deft touch with the various utensils. He samples everything curiously, and is even relaxed enough to let Phil feed him a bit of his own dish, thoughtfully licking Béarnaise sauce from his lip and pronouncing it to be pretty good. Tony laughs at this, but in a kind enough way that Phil feels no need to kick him under the table. Pepper’s wine choice of course goes excellently with everyone’s orders, and it’s clearly an education for Clint, who instinctively sips and savors this stuff in a way Phil has never seen him do with anything. It’s adorable, as is his vanishing off to the subs’ bathroom with Pepper.

“They mostly trade makeup tips and talk about doms,” Tony says, “if you’re wondering.”

Phil has to admit that he is wondering, since doms don’t go to the bathroom in packs. “I’ve gone undercover as a sub before, but I was thinking about other things.”

Tony chuckled. “I can just see you, trying to remember to keep your eyes down and to stand and kneel and all the rest of it.”

“I’m told I was very believable,” Phil says as primly as he can, and Tony cackles.

Their subs return in time for dessert, and when Phil looks closely, he can see that someone (presumably Pepper) has modified Clint’s minimal eye makeup, highlighting the beauty of his sharp blue gaze more than ever. Clint’s choice involves marzipan, and peeling off a delicate sheet he looks up at Phil and suddenly goes red. Phil smiles, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Clint calms, refuses to share his joke with the rest of the class when Tony asks, and is subdued but clearly happy for the rest of the evening.

In the quiet street, with the car doors safely shut behind them, Phil cups Clint’s face in his hands and kisses him, long and sound, the kind of kiss that makes a sub damn well _stay_ kissed. Clint makes a wonderful soft little noise and melts into Phil’s arms for a long moment. When they finally pull apart he’s a little glassy-eyed already, flushed and lax. Phil smiles at him, and makes sure he buckles up before pulling away for the drive home.

Clint says nothing, just resting his head on Phil’s shoulder at every opportunity, and meekly letting Phil lead him into the house by his leash, hands clasped behind him. There’s something strangely fragile about Clint tonight, and Phil leads him upstairs and carefully undresses him, kissing him over and over and telling him what a good boy he is. Clint whimpers, and lets Phil tie him to the bed with their favorite black leather restraints, sobbing as Phil fingers him open and crying out over and over as his dom fucks him, helpless and sweet and completely Phil’s. When tears well up in his eyes, Phil kisses them away and asks for a color, pushing deeper and harder when Clint whimpers, “Green,” fighting to take more. Phil wants to pull out and flog him, to string him along and make him beg and cry more, but they’re tired and Clint is so sweet and trusting that Phil can’t resist, fucking him into his climax and through it to come deep inside him, both of them perfectly content.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Switching Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1407844) by [mabonwitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabonwitch/pseuds/mabonwitch)




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